"Election Day" is Dead
Posted at 12:15 p.m. on Nov. 6, 2012
The Washington Post notes that with the growing prevalence of states that allow early voting, Election Day has “become a relic of community solidarity. This is the year it’s finally, irrefutably, finished.”
“More than 30 million people have already cast ballots, a record in the early-voting sweepstakes. What’s more, we have a good idea of how they voted, through scrutiny of the party identification of those who showed up in person or returned absentee ballots. President Obama helped stick a fork in the concept of Election Day a week before Halloween, when he made history as the first U.S. president to vote early, in Chicago… Two states vote only by mail, the citizens of Oregon and Washington folding and stuffing and stamping alone. In three states — Idaho, South Dakota and Vermont — people have been going to the polls for more than six weeks.”
“Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia offer a full buffet of options for balloting before Election Day, and this year many of the holdouts have capitulated to the wrath of a hurricane. In New Jersey, you can vote by e-mail… But the expansion of choices in time and place and manner of voting also has expanded the litigation over access to the polls — and created plenty of unsettling images of voters waiting hours in line to cast ballots well before Election Day.”
